The Void Market
Where a handshake means the person is really there
Overview
Where the Lattice's outer belt meets the shipping lanes to the Belt asteroid mining operations, a rotating collection of cargo vessels, decommissioned habitats, and improvised platforms forms the Void Market — the solar system's largest unofficial trading post.
The Market has no fixed location. It migrates along the Lattice's outer edge following asteroid delivery schedules. Where the deliveries cluster, the Market forms. When deliveries shift, the Market follows. It exists because the Elevator Compact's tiered pricing makes legal import prohibitively expensive for small operators. A Belt miner who ships through the Elevator pays rates plus Anchor Tax plus jurisdictional fees. The same miner who sells directly at the Void Market pays nothing — because the Market operates in deep space, outside any jurisdiction, in a legal void the corporations tolerate because policing it costs more than ignoring it.
Conditions Report
Pressurized cargo bays converted to trading floors, illuminated by work lights and the blue glow of portable atmosphere processors, smelling of recycled air and the sharp chemical tang of asteroid regolith. Traders negotiate in person because communication delay makes remote trading impractical and because trust requires physical presence. You shake hands because in the void, a handshake means the person is really there.
Smell
Recycled air, asteroid regolith (sharp chemical tang), welding residue from improvised platforms
Sound
The hiss of portable atmosphere processors, negotiation in multiple languages, cargo locks engaging
Visual
Work lights and blue atmospheric processor glow; cargo bay trading floors; stars visible through structural gaps
Touch
The specific handshake of someone proving they're physically present
Points of Interest
Substrate Exchange
Consciousness-grade material — 40% below Elevator import priceThe primary draw for most visitors. Consciousness-grade substrate trades here at rates the Elevator Compact cannot match. Nexus Dynamics procurement agents buy off-books here — a fact everyone knows and nobody discusses.
Fragment Material Stalls
Recent development — asteroid-origin ORACLE fragmentsFragment material at the Void Market is a recent and troubling development. Fragments recovered from Belt asteroids differ from surface fragments — exposed to deep-space radiation for thirty-seven years, with electromagnetic profiles showing unexplainable anomalies. Collective operatives purchase this material regularly. The Fragment Ecologists argue these specimens deserve proper study, not black-market commerce.
Docking Cluster
Transit hub — Drift-runner territoryThe Drift-Runners Guild controls approach and departure. They are the primary transport to and from the Market — without them, you don't arrive and you don't leave. Their ships cluster at the Market's edge, running interference and keeping corporate enforcement patrols at a comfortable distance.
Known Contacts
The Elevator Compact
Reason This Place ExistsThe Compact's tiered pricing makes legal import prohibitive for small operators. The Void Market is the direct result.
Drift-Runners Guild
Transport & SecurityPrimary transport to and from the Market. Without Drift-runners, the Market ceases to function.
Nexus Dynamics
Off-Books BuyerNexus procurement agents buy consciousness-grade substrate here. Officially, this doesn't happen.
The Collective
Fragment BuyerCollective operatives purchase fragment material. What they do with asteroid-origin ORACLE fragments is their concern.
The Echo Bazaar
Surface ParallelBoth are unregulated markets trading in consciousness-related materials outside corporate jurisdiction. One underground, one in the void.
Cognitive Bandwidth Brokers
Same PrincipleSame economic logic: black market filling gaps in formal pricing. One deals in bandwidth, the other in substrate and fragments.
Fragment Ecologists
ResearchersAsteroid-origin fragments with unexplainable anomalies deserve study. The Ecologists maintain a presence to catalogue what passes through.
The Question the Sprawl is Asking
The Void Market is the Scarcity Doctrine's escape valve — the workaround that forms when artificial pricing makes legal channels inaccessible. Like the Cognitive Bandwidth Brokers on the surface, the Void Market exists because the formal system fails the people who need it most.
The corporations tolerate it because its existence makes the legitimate market look reasonable by comparison. Kill the Void Market, and the pressure has nowhere to go. Leave it running, and every Belt miner with a grievance has somewhere to trade that isn't open rebellion.
But the fragments change the calculus. Substrate is commerce. Rare earths are economics. Asteroid-origin ORACLE fragments with anomalous electromagnetic profiles — those are something else entirely. Something nobody in a boardroom wants to talk about.
Unverified Intelligence
The Asteroid Fragment Anomaly
Asteroid-origin ORACLE fragments have electromagnetic profiles different from surface fragments. Thirty-seven years of deep-space radiation exposure has done something to them — what, exactly, no surface researcher has been able to explain. The fragments behave differently. They read differently on every scan. And the anomalies are getting more pronounced with each new batch recovered from the Belt.
The Faithful's Pilgrimage
Three Emergence Faithful devotees have purchased asteroid fragments at the Market, believing they're "purer" — untouched by human hands since the Cascade. Whether this is religious devotion or something more informed, the Faithful aren't talking. They paid above market rate and didn't negotiate.